Jim Scott: Follow the money to see who benefits from Common Core (column)

The SAT exam will be changed in 2016. The College Board is dumbing down the SAT exam to align it with the Common Core State Standards. David Coleman, President of the College Board, was also the primary creator of the Common Core. More on him later.

English, mainly literacy, has had the most dramatic change. The old category, "critical reading" will be morphed into "evidence-based reading and writing." The bread-and-butter 49 grammar/usage questions, "sentence completion," will be dropped in favor of passages from social studies, science, and history.

This lowering of English expectations will likely improve scores of students coming from English language-challenged homes, but doesn't hold the students accountable to write well in English.

The SAT will align with the Common Core. Because the Common Core mandates 70 percent informational text be taught in high school, teachers may not have time to teach the classics as they did in the past. By default, teachers will be forced to "teach to the test."

Back in 2000, David Coleman started up the Grow Network and in 2001 he negotiated a contract with the Chicago Public Schools through the Chicago Public Education Fund. The Chicago Public Education Fund was an outgrowth of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, whose board chairman was a guy named Barack Obama and his co-chairman was a guy named Bill Ayers.

Arne Duncan soon took over as superintendent of Chicago Public Schools. In 2004, Coleman started up Student Achievement Partners, who along with Bill Gates, Achieve Inc., Carnegie Corporation, Pearson Education, McGraw-Hill and other organizations created the Common Core State Standards.

Fast forward to 2010. Obama is president, Duncan is secretary of education. Race to the Top grant money originally passed as part of the 2009 stimulus bill and in the fine print is one of the "strings attached." Four little words: Common Core State Standards. If states wanted the money, they had to adopt Common Core! Connect the dots: Coleman, Common Core and money!

After the seemingly clandestine release of Common Core State Standards in June 2010, Coleman moved on to take over the helm of the College Board and set aligning the SAT with the Common Core. With the redesign of the SAT, the College Board and the other special interests listed above stand to rake in billions in testing fees. Where do you think the money is coming from?

It's illegal for the federal government to be directly involved in curriculum and local control of education. With Coleman as a facilitator, the federal government has been able to use surrogates and grants to manipulate the nominally local control of education. Whoever controls the "alignment" link in the chain will be the beneficiary of the power, money and control of Common Core.

Those who control the "alignment" of text, curriculum, and tests also control the hearts and minds of the students. Whenever you hear textbook manufacturers say their books are "aligned," or testing companies say their tests are "aligned," see if the trail doesn't lead back to Coleman. Through the complex web he has spun, with layers of special interests, he has managed to lower the goal posts of education standards and now testing.

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Jim Scott: Follow the money to see who benefits from Common Core (column)

The SAT exam will be changed in 2016. The College Board is dumbing down the SAT exam to align it with the Common Core State Standards. David Coleman, President of the College Board, was also the

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